Fic: In Each Other's Shadows, PJO/PJO RPF [Part 2]
backwards!
:.:.:.:
The Avatar premiere goes great, as far as premieres go. Only one person throws up and faints, and it's nobody they know, so it stays out of their press. Nobody wears anything highbrow or outlandish, and they survive the Q&A bit on The Lightning Thief without making idiots out of themselves.
It's so much easier to breathe after that; they mingle together on the edges of the bigger, older crowds at the follow-up party, keeping shoulder to shoulder in case they get stopped for pictures. Up until Brandon announces, "All right, enough of this. I'm here to party! Woman, fetch me a drink!"
This last is said to Logan, who's already moving toward one of the wait staff before he realizes what was said to him, and by then Alex looks ready to piss herself laughing, so he brings Brandon a Cosmopolitan -- bright pink, with a rind of pineapple and an umbrella -- and hands it over with a completely straight face.
"Touche," says Brandon, and Alex has to lean on Logan's shoulder, laughing so hard she can't even make a noise.
A little bit later, he gets a text message from Nate, who's forgotten about the time zones. He tried to enter his name into Logan's phone as Son of Poseidon, bitch except Logan had one of those old Razor flip phones, so it only fit the first few characters. Now he gets messages from the Son of Posei and thinks it's absolutely hilarious and refuses to let Nate change it.
Dubbed, reads the text, and Logan thinks it's supposed to read "dude," but Nate's phone can only auto-fill correctly so many times. Seriously, Nate has the worst spelling sense of anyone Logan's ever met. Stop leaving your clothes everywhere. Nobody likes a sloppy boyfriend.
And he knows Nate's talking about his tendency to leave clothes all over the set: a sweatshirt tossed over the back of a chair for when they crank the air conditioning too high, a pair of fluffy socks to put on at lunch when the Greek sandals chafe after a third take, etc and so on, but out of context, it sounds like something else entirely. This he figures out when Alex leans over his shoulder, going, "Hey, what're you smiling about?" and catches sight of the text message before he can whip it out of her line of sight.
"What about your boyfriend?" she half-shrieks, way too loud, making a instinctive swipe for his phone.
He slips it back into his pocket, going, "What -- I don't know what you're talking about," purposely coy, just to see the challenge flare in her expression and the way Brandon's eyebrows do a very spirited leap up his forehead.
For the rest of the night, they make increasingly unsubtle attempts to trick him into either telling them or giving up his phone, and when they fall into the limo to be taken back to their hotel, they've both come down to threatening him with blackmail on his Facebook page, and Logan marvels at how they're in their mid-twenties and he's seventeen and he's still, somehow, the maturest of the lot.
:.:.:.:
The sun is too bright on Percy's face, burning yellow-white coronas on the red undersides of his eyelids.
He blinks slowly, squinting and then turning his head so he's not staring directly up at the sky. It takes one moment, two, and then he jerks upright, casting a panicked look around. He's bloody and still covered in grave dirt from the Underworld, and he moves stiffly, listing a little to one side when he hauls himself to his feet, but none of this is important. At all.
"Annabeth!" he cries out, and there's an answering moan from further down the sidewalk.
He huffs out a quick breath, trying to stop it from becoming a gasp of relief. She's sitting on the curb, leaning back against a "No Parking" sign with her face lifted to the sun. She is soaked to the skin, long streaks of dark hair plastered all across her face.
"Next time," she goes darkly, when he gingerly sits down next to her. "Could you maybe think to warn a girl before you drop half the Atlantic on her head?"
"Sorry," Percy goes, even though he's not, not really, because she opens her eyes then, and the smile that's fighting its way across her mouth makes the light in her eyes just dance, and they sit there for a moment beaming dopily at each other.
"You did good," Annabeth offers, quiet, like it's costing her something.
Percy's grin is momentarily blinding, before he wrestles it back under control and tries to look like she doesn't affect him at all. "So does this mean I get your approval?"
She turns her body towards him, and there's something different about her smile now. "Yeah. Yeah, Seaweed Brain, I guess you do," she goes, her voice trailing off like she's forgetting how to speak.
She tilts her mouth up, and Percy knows an invitation when he sees it. He leans in, presses his sun-chapped lips to hers. She kisses him back, a brief fluttering of her mouth parting against his, and then it's suddenly less of a kiss and more of an argument, which is more their style anyway. He slides one hand into her hair and hooks the other one around her knee, pulling it astride his hips. She makes a noise low in her throat, settles more firmly into his lap, and kisses him harder.
And this, this is perfect. This makes everything worth it, just for this moment, Annabeth's arms curling around his neck and her skin cool to the touch.
Somewhere close-by, a cell phone goes off; Katy Perry blasts out recriminations about Vegas.
"Shit," goes someone. "Sorry!"
Alex pulls away from him with a noise like she's surfacing from somewhere deep, twisting her head to say with sarcastic incredulity, "Really? Really, you guys? Your sense of timing sucks."
And suddenly Logan's back in his own skin, just a kid wearing fake blood and dress-up clothes, with a lapful of actress ten years his senior, and it leaves him dizzy and reeling a little bit, like he's stepping out of a theater into blinding sunlight and not really remembering which world he's in. He blinks rapidly, trying to reconcile place and time and who he is with who he's supposed to be.
There are people everywhere, milling off-set; Chris and Lynn and a couple folks from costuming and one sleepy-looking girl from make-up, plus Jake, whose phone it had been. He looks unrepentant.
Nate's the only one still watching Logan and Alex, a half-smile on his face, something a little sad and distant.
Logan's eyes catch on that smile, the faint hook of Nate's lips that he can see even in the off-stage shadow, and the feeling of disconnect gets even sharper as he stares, and Logan's not sure what he's looking at; this can't be the Nate Logan knows, because Nate doesn't go around looking ... looking wistful, like he's remembering this.
He thinks, unbidden, of the way Nate laughs when he's truly been startled by something, barking sharp like it's being torn out of him, exploding at the seams and the corners with laughter, and what it feels like to make him laugh like that.
When they're ready to film again, Logan holds onto that feeling, and Percy is looking at Annabeth with admiration and hunger, like a man struck stupid, laid helpless and in love.
:.:.:.:
For all that he might have a bit of a gay crush on the grip that cheats death like it's in the answer key on the bottom of his cereal box, Logan thinks he's handling it pretty well. Sticks it in a little mental compartment and doesn't act weird about it -- which, frankly, any actor learns coming out of the metaphorical cradle.
"Licorice?" Nate offers, tilting a huge bag of Red Vines towards him when he settles in the dirt next to him in between shoots. It's one of those wood scenes with Uma Thurman again -- they're just waiting for her to show up. She's two hours late, but, hey. Nobody rushes Uma Thurman (first name, last name, because legends, man.)
"Woah. Where'd this come from?" Logan goes, breaking off a long rope, because, oh hell, never let anyone say Logan Lerman won't take free candy.
Nate's grin is a brief sliver of white teeth. "My mom works in a candy shop in Manhattan. She sent me these."
"A candy shop, huh," Logan says, his voice unconsciously dropping into a 50 Cent lilt.
Grow up, says Nate's expression. "Totally the best part of my childhood."
"I bet." It's a huge bag, he notes. "Your mom is awesome."
"Yeah, she is," Nate goes, with easy, open affection, and Logan would totally call him out on being a mama's boy, except his mouth is full of licorice and he's predisposed in Nate's mother's favor, whoever she is.
"I have a new fan site," he announces.
"Whoop-de-doo," Nate replies automatically. And then, "Another one?"
"Yup. This one posts a new picture of me every day," he says grandly.
"That's ... kind of creepy."
"Yeah, a bit," Logan shrugs, flashes him his photographer-friendly smile. "Welcome to Hollywood!"
"Be that as it may, but my fan site causes more wank than yours."
"You don't even have --"
Brandon chooses that exact moment to crop up behind them, still decked out in full Grover gear and carrying his sword in one hand. They stop talking instantly in order to look up at him, and he blinks back at them with the dawning expression of someone who's just awkwardly interrupted something.
"Sorry," he goes, after a beat that stretches too long. "Is this one of those generational gap things? Because 'wank' is a very curious word, and under normal circumstances I would be all over it, but I'm not sure you were using it in the context I think you were using it in. You young people are going to have to explain this to --" There's sudden loud crashing in the woods behind him, and he goes, "Oh, shit, it's Alex," and hustles his lurid green ass around them like it's been set on fire.
It's one of those cast in-jokes things. Somewhere along the line, after bumping each other one too many times with their props during the first few run throughs, their swords and shields had become synonymous with herpes -- i.e., "keep your goddamn herpes away from me!" and it just escalated from there, until even Chris was doing it ("Logan, your herpes is blocking the shot, do something about it!"): "excuse me," Alex says, materializing behind them and scrambling in between them. She chases Brandon in and out of the trees, waving her sword around and yelling something along the lines of, "you're going to take my herpes, bitch, and you're going to like it," and Brandon tries to duck back and around and gets full-on body tackled. Alex isn't big enough to actually knock him over, so they just kind of wrestle in place, shouting and cussing and generally being immature.
Logan, who by sheer knee-jerk reaction has his phone out and is totally making a video of this, glances sideways at Nate, who's watching them with something unidentifiable all over his face; not like he's watching two actors make idiots of themselves before a shoot, but like he's watching a couple friends and remembering something bright and warm and personal.
He calls out, "Come on, Annabeth, he's leaving his right side wide open! Hit him with your elbow!"
"Dude, shut up!" Brandon yelps, but it's too late: Alex delivers a swift jab and then their roles are reversed, and the audience their scuffle has attracted groans in sympathy.
And this is what it's like, Logan realizes with a feeling not unlike leaning out over a very large drop, watching the laughter light Nate up from the inside out, to be with someone who likes people for people, who cannot act to save his life, and to realize that out of the two, you're not the one you like best.
:.:.:.:
The next few days, Logan doesn't have to be on set at all -- they're doing a couple retakes of scenes that he, miraculously, doesn't appear in, and he has free time, which for this movie has been about as likely as him staying awake throughout the entire State of the Union address: which is to say, not at all.
He spends them doing absolutely fuck-all around his house, sending his brother stupid texts at the most awkward times and doing nothing more strenuous than heading downstairs to heat up some Pizza Rolls and then carrying them back to his room.
When his name shows up on call again, it's for one of the pool scenes: one of the very earliest shots in the whole movie, when he's nothing more complicated than a kid who might be kind of a freak for water but is otherwise unremarkable.
He gets there early, before even the make-up people -- who have to be part-bat considering they're always there and don't seem to spend all the time he's in the chair yawning in his face like he does to them, seriously, someone should give those guys a medal -- and he blames it on all that inactivity after several months straight of 12-hour workdays: it's almost a relief to stand on the blue-tiled edge of the pool, right on top of the smooth enamel that says "6ft" like it's important that it's exactly where he stands, and slip into Percy's skin like it's the most worn and comfortable of jackets.
It's something a lot like peace, the slow fall forward, the water closing cold and sudden over his body as he disappears beneath the surface, wrapping him up and swallowing him down, and Logan doesn't know if that's him or if that's Percy -- he thinks they've gotten tangled inside of him, somewhere over the course of this production. Happiness stretches out underneath his skin in a filmy haze, warming him, down here where all the sounds of the outside world are muffled, indistinguishable from the beat of his own blood in his ears.
When he finally surfaces, the pool is still empty, spare for Nate, sitting cross-legged on the edge. He's got a towel tossed over his thighs, simply watching Logan artlessly shove his wet hair up his forehead and rub chlorine out of his eyes.
Logan or Percy, it's one of the two, nodding in the face of inevitability, and it seems like the absolute right course of action to kick over to Nate, hauling himself up out of the pool, water spreading out from underneath his swim trunks and dripping off his body, but Nate doesn't edge away, just hands him the towel, and Logan takes one look at his eyes, blue-green and bright like they've been highlighted by the sun, and feels breathless all over again.
Nate breaks silence first, going, "Cameras aren't even supposed to be here for another hour, you know."
Taking refuge by burying his face in the towel, Logan makes some vaguely affirmative noise. "It was either this or the gym, and I don't know about you, but I like the pool better."
"You actors and your preoccupation with having perfect bodies," Nate's tone is judgmental, but when he lifts his head, his mouth is quirked in that mocking smile.
"Hey," he says defensively. "You're not the one who has to be wet and half-naked in high-definition in front of the entire nation. And probably Brazil. Didn't you tell me once that Percy Jackson was really popular in Brazil?"
Nate's lips twitch, half-parted like he's going to retort, but Logan drops the towel into his lap, unconsciously straightening his back and running a hand down his abs -- he's no Taylor Lautner, but he doesn't think he's bad to look at, and whatever Nate's going to say is lost in a sudden inhale, like his heart has tripped and took his lungs with it.
It draws Logan's attention as whip-crack-fast as a car wreck, and he finds Nate's eyes following the path of his hand, the irises suddenly storm-colored and his nostrils flared. The effect of this is immediate and visceral, and Logan stops breathing like it's no longer important, spreading his hand flat over his sternum.
It's crystal clear in his imagination, the picture it will make; Nate's fingers spreading over his bare skin, the rest of his body following, mouth slack with surprise and his hair messy and getting messier when he curls his fingers in it, drag him close, and Logan wants it so bad it feels like every cell in his body has been charged with it.
Touch me, he thinks at him, like a playground dare, I'll do it if you do it first. Nate's eyes snap up to his like he can hear it, and Logan would never hold his gaze like a challenge, but he isn't Logan right now; he's half-Percy, too, and so he stares back. His mind flitters, shutter-fast, over every little detail about Nate's body; those damn eyes, his unmarked skin and crooked mouth and the lines of his fingers and it's ridiculous, how much Logan wants to slide across the wet tile, push himself up onto his knees and sling a leg over Nate's hips, kiss that mouth that says insulting things without a care, and it feels so much like drowning, and he's so in love it pulses inside of him like it's shadowing his heartbeat.
Wait, what, goes some other part of his brain, suddenly paying attention.
And then, waking up to the tension that's cropped up, sudden and electric, oh, shit. Oh shit. I am. I really am.
So Logan does the only logical thing he can do; he shoves Nate into the pool.
:.:.:.:
He's still thinking along these lines, unable to shake that breathless, weightless feeling, even weeks later, when The Lightning Thief has officially moved into post-production and they celebrate with a trip to the national park, where they have a barbeque and everyone finally gets to meet the author's son, who -- if you believe Mr. Riordan's spiel about ADHD and dyslexia and how the books came to be -- is the real life Percy Jackson.
The afternoon has pretty much bled away, smearing the sky with yellows and oranges, and it finds him flat on his back on the bank of the lake, because he'd tried to wrestle Nate into a headlock. Apparently they teach grips kung-fu, because even though Logan got a crash-course in foam-sword-fighting and basic self-defense, he maybe gets a blow and a half on Nate before he finds himself flipped over the kid's shoulder into the mud. Which is uncomfortable, and awkward, and dude, mud, seeping under the waistline of his shorts. That is never cool. And Nate is sitting on top of him, and Logan will never understand what it is about this bro that he never gets wet. Seriously.
He opens his mouth, intending to complain about this, and maybe also the fact that he is on his back in the mud, but what comes out instead is, "You have very pretty eyes."
Nate blinks once. And twice. And then his lips give a wry quirk. "And I thought I was strange and inbred," he remarks in tones of great wonder usually reserved for the kind of people who wind up on FailBlog.
And then they're kissing, like it's the natural progression from point A to point B: Nate leaning down, head crooked to the side and his tongue working deep and slow in Logan's mouth. Logan's fingers curl in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging and bringing him closer, and somewhere in the distance, he can hear Uma Thurman going, "No. You are not getting me in a paddleboat."
He takes a moment to pause and reflect on how incredibly strange his life is, that he's listening to Uma shriek, "Never!" and the pounding of feet on the dock as Rosario Dawson and Alexandra Daddario chase her down, and Pierce Brosnan yelling at them from a paddleboat in the middle of the lake, and that he's in the mud and the wet and the Percy part of him is wondering why he ever thought that was uncomfortable, not when he has Nate on top of him, except Nate is snorting and --
"What the hell," he protests blankly when the kiss breaks off into Nate snickering.
"I'm sorry," says Nate, totally unapologetic and not even managing to be charming about it, and Logan likes him for this. Always has. "I think this now officially makes me narcissistic."
Strange and inbred, indeed. "Thank you for the revelation," he allows magnanimously, and tries to tug him close again. "You know, you owe me your real name, don't you? You remember: I do a great job doing Percy --" Nate's lips quirk and Logan revises mentally; great word choice when he has warm boy weight in his lap. "-- and you'd tell me your real name."
Nate looms closer, his skin warm and sun-soaked and stupidly dry. "I guess I do," he concedes, and bends to Logan's ear.
:.:.:.:
It takes five and a half minutes for Logan's brain to repair itself, which is long enough for Nate -- no, Percy, Percy Nathaniel Jackson what the flipping shit -- to shrug and go, "We could make out at the bottom of the lake. I can do that, you know."
"Oh, hell no," is Logan's immediate reply. "I am not taking your sloppy seconds of a romantic idea."
Percy flashes him a brilliant smile. "I knew you read the books," he says, triumphant, and reaches for him; Logan follows, complaining, and they meet in the middle.
-fin
... yeah, I don't even know.